What Jesus was passionate about

Jesus was fifteen miles and about a week away from his crucifixion.  The hellish events of Holy Week were on his mind.  Yet he refused to allow his greater mission to blind him to seeking out one man.  

William Smith reflects on how Jesus’ concern for an undersized tax collector demonstrates the heart-attitude that compelled our Savior every step of the way to the cross. (Read the account in Luke 19:1–10.)

Jesus was on a mission. He singled Zacchaeus out and chose to go to his home. 

What did Jesus see in the man that drew him? Jesus explains his choice by saying that he came to seek and to save the lost (Luke 19: 10). 

The quality that drew Jesus to Zacchaeus was the fact that he was a lost man. In seeking out Zacchaeus, God shows you his heart. So often we talk about what Jesus did or said but ignore his attitude toward us and what drives him. 

Your God is passionate. Jesus came to look for those who wander through life dazed and confused. He searched them out intently, looking beyond those who clamored for his attention to locate those who had no hope. 

Jesus was not put off by Zacchaeus’s despicable sins. He did not recoil from him. Rather, Jesus saw his lostness and found him. 

Jesus is the same today. The same grace that moved him to leave heaven and cross time and space to find one pathetic conniver half-hidden in a tree is the same grace that moves him to look for you. 

He looked for you when you first came to know him and he looks for you even now. Desperate people— lost, confused, frightened— need to know that God searches for them. 

Source:
William P. Smith, Heart of the Matter: Daily Reflections for Changing Hearts and Lives, New Growth Press (2012-10-01).